ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF BENEFICIAL MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN SOUTHERN MANITOBA

Abstract

Public concern of the value of environment quality has risen over the past three decades and numerous policies, programs and strategic plans have been developed to address damage to the quantity and quality of environmental attributes. The adoption of agricultural beneficial management practices (BMPs) by producers can result in increased environmental benefits and/or decrease the negative environmental impacts from certain agricultural activities. In Canada, farmers have been encouraged to adopt BMPs through government payments that are designed to partially offset the costs of BMP adoption on their land. The purpose of this study is to develop estimates of the social value of environmental improvements caused by the adoption of BMPs by farms in Manitoba. A contingent valuation method (CVM) is used to estimate the social value of improvements in water clarity, water odour, water quantity (flood reduction), and recreation and fish habitat using two sample population; 1) South Tobacco Creek (STC) watershed area in south western Manitoba, 2) Ag Days Farm show in Brandon, Manitoba. Heckman selection models (Probit and OLS regressions), are used to estimate respondent’s willingness to pay for some environmental quality improvements. The results suggest that society ascribes positive value to the selected environmental quality improvements with water quantity (flood reduction) attributed the highest value.